My first experience with MMOs was playing on a PvP server in WoW. I spent 12 years there, actually. There was something about that constant PvPvE setting that always made things a bit more interesting as you never knew what was going to happen. So, I finally decided to give the main questline in Imperial City an honest try this weekend to see how the experience compared. I enjoyed the story and, as a filthy casual, I'm still not done yet as I don't have the time to spend on the game like I used to. I'm a terrible brawler and I'm also not a meta guy, so I went in with one of my favourite PvP toons which is a Dominion healer/tank Templar (slightly tweaked so that I could actually kill some mobs). My intent was to try and get through the quests and not get totally destroyed. Here are some observations:

Back in the day on a PvP server in WoW, there was this general unwritten rule that it was rude to jump someone when they were in the middle of fighting mobs. Not to say that it didn't happen but it was not something that happened all the time. You always kept on eye on the other player who was nearby but often there was a live and let live kind of relationship and sometimes even active cooperation. Those were some of my favourite encounters.

On my first encounter in Imperial City, however, it became obvious that things were quite different. Shortly after starting, as I was fighting a Xyvkin, I got jumped by a Covenant werewolf. I went into perma-block mode and easily fended him off but he didn't seem interested in my passive resistance. I kept backing away, showing him I wasn't interested in trying to take him down but if he insisted on trying to get me, I wasn't going to go down without making things difficult for him. He kept at me for a good fifteen minutes or so. Finally, after I snuck in a couple of salutes to show my good faith, he finally relented and went on his way.

A little later, while killing some more mobs for a quest, I was jumped by a Pact Nightblade. I went into survival mode and he gave up after about a minute. I continued on my way only to be jumped by him a second time and after about a minute, he gave up again. I went on to fight some more mobs and he showed up a third time. I held him off for a couple of minutes and then another Pact player showed up to help him. I kept them both at bay, making things as annoying for them as possible when a five-star ally showed up out of nowhere and rescued me taking down at least one of them and chasing off the other. I threw some heals his way during the fight but probably didn't make much of a difference to him. What an unexpected but welcome relief!

I got jumped a few more times. The most annoying was when I was at the last wave of mobs while defending one of the three entrances to that barricaded area (I forget what it's called). I was jumped by 3 Covenant players and they took me down before I could get fully established in my defence and I watched the last mob die and the chest appear that I would never be able to collect from. Lol! At least the quest was completed. A funny encounter was being steam rolled by 30 or so Covenant and then having one of the late comers at the back of the pack teabag me. I thought that was hilarious.

Probably the most interesting encounter happened while I was doing the quest to fight the Daedra in the arena. I was on the last boss who had summoned a bunch of fire atronachs when 2 Pact players showed up. I held up my defences and tried to keep killing mobs in an attempt to show them I was doing a quest. I'm not sure what they're initial intentions where but they hung around for a bit and they may have hit me (it was chaotic so hard to tell) but shortly afterward they left and the boss reset. This time, when the ogrim dropped and the last boss spawns, he didn't have any atronachs with him making the fight a little easier. I even saw those 2 Pact players near the entrance once during the fight but they never came back in to give me any problems. I can only assume that they empathized with my plight. It's always nice to see empathy make its way past the screen. Thanks for the help, guys!

TLDR: I had a blast, enjoyed some great storytelling, and had some interesting PvP experiences both bad and good. There's definitely more of a zero tolerance attitude toward the other factions but there are still some people out there willing to look past it to let a guy get his quest done.